Smearing Daffy

Daffy Duck hands a gun to a bull to kill himself in Mexican Joyride (released Nov. 29, 1947), another fine cartoon from the Art Davis unit.

There’s some great smear animation in this scene. The in-betweens are animated on twos.



Bill Melendez, Herman R. Cohen, Basil Davidovich and Don Williams are the credited animators.

There’s some really expressive animation of Daffy near the beginning which I suspect is Melendez’ work.

Dave Monahan wrote the story. Tom McKimson handled the layouts and the backgrounds were by Phil DeGuard. I believe this was the last Warners cartoon with McKimson’s name on the credits. He was replaced by Don Smith.

Despite what trade publications and ads say, “Joyride” is one word on the opening titles, not two.

Art Imitates Life

Jack Benny was not an unmarried man with a valet named Rochester and a boarder named Mr. Billingsley. That was the phoney, on-the-air Jack Benny.

Yet there were parts of the Benny radio show that were true. He did grow up in Waukegan, Illinois. Mary Livingstone did have a sister named Babe (née Ethel). Rochester (Eddie Anderson) did race a horse named Burnt Cork in the Kentucky Derby. Phil Harris did like to imbibe once in a while.

This means there are occasions whether a listener wonders whether something that happened on the show has a basis in fact. One example is on the broadcast of October 12, 1941. The dialogue goes:

Jack: Don, have you heard any reports on our opening program last Sunday, you know, comments, reactions and so forth?
Don: Why, yes, Jack. Some people seem to like it very, very much.
Jack: Uh huh.
Don: Some people thought it was fairly good.
Jack: Uh huh.
Don: And some people...
Jack (interrupting): Well, yes, sir. Well, Don, I thought the press was exceptionally nice this year. For instance, PM gave us a lovely notice. In fact, you could almost call it a rave.
Mary: Tell him about the Daily News.
Jack: Yup, PM said our opening program was really a humdinger. Very nice, don’t you think?
Don: Oh, wonderful.
Jack: And Radio Guide liked it and Billboard, the theatrical paper, seemed to think we had a hilarious show.
Mary: Tell him about the Daily News.
Jack: Mary, it just so happens that Ben Gross, radio editor of the News, didn’t like the program and he’s entitled to his opinion. I have no hard feelings toward Ben.
Mary: You haven’t, eh?
Jack: No.
Mary: Then why did you try to get Errol Flynn to beat him up?

It’s very safe to see Jack didn’t sic Flynn onto Ben Gross. But was it true? Did Gross pan the opening show? Did PM give it a rave review?

Here is an instance when radio imitates real life.

PM gave Jack’s show almost two-thirds of a page, including a photo—the programme was broadcast from New York, the newspaper’s home base. Here’s the article, unbylined, from October 6, 1941, the day after the broadcast.

King Benny Rides Again
VENDOR: Hot dogs, hot dogs. . . . Get your red hot dogs here. . . Hot dog, old timer?
MR. BENNY: Yes. . . .Give me two. . . .
VENDOR: Yes sir. . . . D’ya want the reg’lar, or the king size?
Thus, in his typical topical vein, the nation’s favorite mummer of Americana, Jack Benny, returned to his 30,000,000 weekly listeners last night (WEAF 7), with a sur-fire [sic] skit that might have been entitled Mr. Benny at the Ball Game, or Down In Front.
Except for a characteristic opening-night nervousness, from which Jack genuinely suffers after nearly a quarter century in show business, the Benny show last night was just what the 30,000,000 want: a spate of discomforture for Jack, the penny-pincher; acid comments by Mary Livingston [sic]; a few well timed phone calls from Rochester, the oppressed but irrepressible valet; a song, a dance, and a hearty sales approach from 200-pound [sic] Don Wilson, the Jello announcer. You might say that Jack Benny, in his 11th radio year, and starting his eighth season for Jello, was in mid-season form.
Some listeners may have noted, however, that last night's Jello program lacked the intimacy that is its hallmark. That was because last night's broadcast came from the full-sized, 800-seat Ritz Theater in Manhattan (it will next week, too), whereas the Benny programs originate ordinarily in a 300-seat NBC studio in Hollywood. There, the studio audience usually finds itself part of the show; in Manhattan, Benny the Phenomenon has to strut the stage.
The reason NBC sets Benny up in a big studio whenever he can be lured to Manhattan is the unprecedented demand for broadcast tickets. This year's requests haven't been counted up yet, but last year, for his broadcast from Manhattan in the spring, there were 50,000 requests for the Ritz Theater's 800 seats.
Jack is notoriously the most fretful and nervous of all the big-timers, and he was even "nervouser and nervouser" last night. After the last rehearsal, which ended about 6, he paced up and down back as though ducking a hot-foot. He lighted cigars that were already lit; his eyes had a faraway look; he sat down, then got up.
When he finally went on the air, this nervousness continued for a while. He perspired; his hands and his script trembled as though he were an amateur; he lip-read all the others' lines and nodded with the punch lines. After the first 10 minutes of the show, this stopped. The laughs relaxed him. At the sign off, he even said good night to his daughter Joan, out in Hollywood.
Although the standard radio contract runs in multiples of 13 weeks, and the usual radio season is for 39 weeks. Benny this year is doing only 35 broadcasts. He can, if he wants, take off two weeks later in the season. He has also eliminated the repeat broadcast for the west coast, thus ending a long-standing radio custom traceable to the differences in east coast and west coast times. Instead of repeating, in person, the Benny program is now rebroadcast by transcription.
Jack, who is paid $18,500 a week (out of which he pays all hands on the program, including the band and maestro Phil Harris), is the only performer in radio who has the foregoing privileges. He won them last year after a long battle with General Foods, makers of Jello.
The fight got so far advanced that when it looked as though lack and Jello wouldn't get together, NBC did an unheard-of thing, they gave Jack, the comic, the option on the NBC-Red (WEAF) 7 p.m. Sunday time segment. This was the first time in radio history that a performer, and not a sponsor, got an option on broadcast time.
What prompted NBC to this unprecedented action was its desire to continue its hold on the 30,000,000 listeners who tune Jack in Sunday nights. Furthermore, Jack still has that same time option; it means he is still boss. As one General Foods rep-representative [sic] observed wryly:
“Jack can fire us almost any time he wants to.”



And what of Ben Gross’ review? Here is it from the same date.

Jack Benny aired his premiere from New York City, with Mary Livingstone, Rochester, Phil Harris, Dennis Day and others of his legendary company on hand (WEAF-7). For the first time, a transcription instead of a an [sic] "in person" rebroadcast was used for the West Coast. I mention this first, as I dislike having to come to the point, which is simply this: Last evening's show was not up to Jack's old standard. And the fault was not in the star, dear Brutus, but in the material. For his initial venture of the season the boys who pound the typewriters were below par. But Jack is a fellow who quickly remedies such defects. The chances are he'll be back next Sunday with a whale of a show.

It turns out Gross was listening to Mary and Jack’s dialogue about his critique, and he commented on it a week later in his column:

Those of you who heard Mary Livingstone last evening know that, just because we didn't like Jack Benny's show last week, he had tried to sick Errol Flynn on us. And you know what Flynn does to columnists! So, come to think of it, we had better be careful this morning . . . But all kidding aside, Jack's second broadcast (WEAF-7) was a great improvement on his first. It had plenty of laughs. The script was still not up to the high mark of last season and the cast still seemed a bit nervous. But the show's getting into stride and by next week, it should be up to its old form.

Incidentally, neither Radio Guide nor Billboard had a review of the show in their issues which hit stands on October 11, the only editions after the first show and before the second. So it appears, in this case, art imitates life. Sometimes.

Bill Lava

Carl Stalling was the master of musical directors for Warner Bros. cartoons, incorporating pieces of classical music, Raymond Scott’s compositions, and the-title-fits-the-scene popular songs to weave scores that have become fixed in the minds of millions of people. His arranger, Milt Franklyn, followed pretty much the same template. Frank Marsales, in the Harman-Ising era, put bouncy versions of tunes from Warner Bros. musicals into the background of cartoons. Norman Spencer and Bernie Brown (if Brown actually wrote music for the cartoons) provided serviceable accompaniment, despite the use of a back-beat woodblock that bordered on obsessiveness.

That brings us to Bill Lava.

Lava gets dumped on by some Warner Bros. cartoon fans because of his sparse orchestrations and less-than-melodic scores. Lava used far fewer of the Warners’ musical possessions than any of his predecessors. He was hired to score the cartoons after Franklyn’s death. One Sylvester-Tweety short, The Jet Cage (1962), features both composers, with Lava finishing the cartoon after Franklyn died.

Yet Lava shouldn’t be judged on cartoons alone, especially when the studio that employed him was past its prime. He had a fine career providing music for features and shorts. He wrote the theme song for F Troop, a stirring march that bore no resemblance to what sounds like budget-saving instrumentations on his cartoons.

William Benjamin Lava was born on March 18, 1911 in St. Paul, Minnesota; his father Abraham was a cotton broker specialising in bedding textiles who had emigrated to the U.S. from Poland. In 1916, the family was in Chicago. In 1930, Lava was employed as a railroad clerk. He studied at Northwestern University, writing for the university’s commerce magazine, and arrived in Hollywood in 1936; the Los Angeles City Directory in 1937 lists his occupation as “musician.”

The Hollywood Reporter of Aug. 2, 1937 mentions he supplied songs for Republic’s Sea Racketeers. Lava was responsible for more music for Republic and is mentioned as the “arranger for Joe Reichman’s orchestra” in the Jan. 26, 1938 edition of Variety. The Los Angeles Daily News of March 26, 1940 talks about his “pleasing music score” for Courageous Dr. Christian, produced by Stephens-Lang for RKO, while the Citizen-News of Sept. 11th that year reports he conducted a 92-piece orchestra in an original score for an industrial film for the Department of the Interior.

The two trades published occasional squibs about Lava. With the war on, Lava contributed to musical propaganda, co-writing “Let’s Take the Blitz Out of Fritz” (Variety, Oct. 21, 1942). He also spoke at a music conference at the Carthay Circle Theatre, discussing his score for Warners’ I Won’t Play. At the same conference, speaking about music for cartoons, was Scott Bradley, who elaborated on his scores for Bear Raid Warden and Dance of the Weed (Reporter, Oct. 26, 1944). Lava was on the staff of Warner Bros. at this point providing music for features and shorts, including the Joe McDoakes series starring George O’Hanlon.

He was involved in an unusual recording in 1946. Columbia released a single featuring the Hollywood Presbyterian Church choir performing “highly stylized” versions of “The Lost Chord” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” with a solo by Warners actor Dennis Morgan (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Mar. 10, 1946).

Radio beckoned Lava as well. On June 3, 1949, he began work as musical director (uncredited) of a new dramatic series about police work starring Jack Webb (Reporter, June 1). No, Lava did not write the well-known Dragnet theme. However, he did compose an opening/closing march featuring horns and a timpani that may have inspired Walter Schumann’s theme that debuted in the third episode.

A “musical poem” entitled “The Young Fox” was a Lava composition and debuted Nov. 5, 1950 at John Burroughs High School, performed by the Burbank Symphony.

With television now a big deal, Lava and N. Gayle Gitterman formed Allegro Productions in June 1951, with offices at the Goldwyn studios. The Reporter said the pilot for a special agent series (Special File, starring Dick Travis) was to be shot in a month. In October, the Los Angeles Times reported on casting for Allegro’s Voyage of the Scarlet Queen (starring Kim Spalding and Sean McLory), which had been a radio show on Mutual. The idea was to cut records with the series’ stars. Allegro ran into trouble. A show called Lives of the U.S. Rangers was cancelled before it even began filming; Lava blamed the “inability to secure certain conditions that were deemed essential,” according to the Reporter in Aug. 1951. Allegro went bust and Lava opened Telescene Productions, announcing a 15-minute filmed travelogue TV series called Beauty Is Where You Find It (Variety, Dec. 9, 1953) with James Brown as narrator-reporter (Reporter, Jan. 8, 1954).

In the meantime, he also scored his first cartoon, though not for the studio where he was on staff. He composed the music for UPA’s Fuddy Duddy Buddy (released Oct. 18, 1951). Britain’s Monthly Film Bulletin declared the music “witty,” a term never applied to his cartoons for Warners.

Lava joined seven other composers on the staff of Universal-International (San Bernadino County Sun, Oct. 31, 1954), though he was still at Warners writing music for theatricals and television. He also provided his first music for Walt Disney Productions in the short Stormy the Thoroughbred (released March 1954).

Starting with part of The Jet Cage, Lava scored about 60 Warners cartoons up to Snow Excuse (released May 21, 1966). Former Walter Lantz musical director Walter Greene took over for about a year, then Lava returned to compose music for Quacker Tracker (released April 29, 1967) until the studio closed for good in 1969. A few of the cues from the Stalling era returned, including “When My Dreamboat Comes Home,” “I Like Mountain Music,” “It’s Magic” and “April Showers,” but Lava compositions were responsible for the bulk of the scores.

Perhaps his best-known work was on the aforementioned Warner Bros. TV series F Troop which aired between 1965 and 1967. Lava spoke about the Old West sitcom in an article (possibly an ABC handout) that appeared in the Sacramento Bee of Jan. 22, 1967. He pointed out while actor James Hampton played the inept Fort Courage bugler, the sound actually came from the horn of session musician Larry Sullivan. “The only way I can get Larry to play bad,” Lava revealed, “is to break him up. While he’s recording I whisper something funny in his ear, or I tickle him. You’d be surprised at the crazy results. The best ones go on the finished sound track.”

After F Troop completed its run, Lava set up another company in the fall of 1968. Orbit Productions was based out of the home of partner George A. Summerson and was part-owned by Warner Bros. cartoon effects animator Harry Love.

Lava died of a heart attack on February 20, 1971. He was 59. Samuel H. Sherman, writing in Variety of April 7, 1971, lamented Lava’s loss as shrinking the ranks of veteran film composers, equating him with Max Steiner, Victor Young and Dimitri Tiomkin. The tribute noted he was self-taught, his career as a band arranger in the Midwest in the 1930s, his arrival in Hollywood to work under Nat Shilkret at RKO, mentioned he was working at the time of his death on a Disney feature on the Calgary Stampede and a pilot for Treasury Dept. with David Janssen. And while it referred to “a wide variety of major features” at Warners, some without screen credit, his work in animation was overlooked.

Those who find his Warners cartoon scores grating may think that’s not a real loss, but Lava’s time at the studio and his longevity in Hollywood deserve to be recognised.

Crashcup Calls

Clyde Crashcup answers the phone in a spoof of This is Your Life. The lousy VHS dub below doesn’t let you see what’s scrawled on the wall. I don’t know if there was a “Gertrude” or “Alice D” (at HOllywood 6-something-or-other) at Format Films but one name is familiar.



Let’s get a close-up.



Yes, it’s the name of Bob Kurtz, a Chouinard grad and Peabody Award-winning designer who was a story writer at Format at the time.

I’d like to think another scrawl is “Hee’s Turkey Ranch” named after ex-Disney writer Tee Hee (at LA-23156) but I can’t be certain that’s what it says.

This is one of the better Crashcup stories as he’s beaten by an ex-college football pal, insulted by his fifth grade teacher (played by June Foray), attacked by his dog (also played by June Foray), and meets Leonard’s annoyed mother (June Foray was busy on this episode), who is on the show only because Leonardo took advantage of the offer of a free flight from Nebraska.

The cartoon was made in 1961 at the tail-end of the tail fad in cars.

Here’s a great perspective design of the car Crashcup was in. Sorry for the unmatching colours; digital fuzziness from an old video dub doesn’t help. Note the UPA-style crowd on the left.



Shep Menken is doing his Richard Haydn voice as Crashcup. I don’t think he’s the emcee, but you can hear the exact same voice as Dialer in the Jerry Fairbanks industrial film Talking of Tomorrow (1962).

A Bird Dog

The Fleischer cartoons of the early ‘30s always seem to have throwaway gags popping up out of nowhere or some wild, creative imagery. Here’s an example of the last one in the Screen Song Let’s All Sing Like the Birdies Sing (1934). A hungry kitty is after a little bird.



Pan up to birds in a tree.



They go into formation. They form a dog! (Yes, a bird dog for you punners out there).



They fly down to the ground, re-form as a barking dog and frighten the cat away.



The next scene is even weirder, as another cat climbs up clothesline, falls into a sock and drops to the ground, looking like a snake.

“Listen to the Mockingbird” accompanies the sequences.

Myron Waldman and Tom Johnson are given the revolving “animated by” credit.

Catching a Trout On the Air

If someone asked you “What network newsman hosted the first quiz show on post-war television?” you would likely think of John Daly on What’s My Line? It began its long run in early 1950.

But you’d be wrong.

The correct answer is Bob Trout.

He hosted Who Said That?, which first aired on NBC radio in 1948 and then on television.

I’ve always felt bad for Trout. He and Doug Edwards got shafted by CBS network management. Edwards, through no fault of his own, was abruptly replaced after 14 years as the evening news anchor by Walter Cronkite. Trout was a news and public affairs pioneer at CBS, making a reputation in the 1930s as someone who could cover a special event live and speak off the top of his head with great poise for as long as he had to. During World War Two, he reported from Europe and also hosted the venerable “World News Today” from New York.

But Trout was eclipsed by newcomers, news people who had not come up through the ranks of the announcing staff as he had—Edward R. Murrow, Charles Collingwood, Eric Severeid, even Edwards (who had been an announcer at WSB Atlanta). When Murrow replaced him on his main radio gig in 1948, Trout was miffed and decided to go to NBC. Among his duties was emceeing Who Said That?. But things dried up for him there and he returned to CBS in 1952 in time for the political conventions. The problem for Trout was television had become the big thing, and he was nowhere in the line of sight for playing a major network TV role. Instead, he anchored local television news and appeared on radio newscasts.

Who Said That? debuted on July 2, 1948 with panelists John Cameron Swayze, H.V. Kaltenborn, Scripps-Howard columnist Robert Ruark and foreign correspondent Leslie Stowe. Swayze, who got some first-hand experience at network demotions in 1956, was a regular; he had been hosting the Camel News Theatre during the week from 7:50 to 8 p.m. since February (Who Said That? aired Fridays at 8:30 Eastern). Here’s an unbylined article that appeared in the Sidney [Ohio] Daily News of Dec. 8, 1949. It’s not much of a surprise Oscar Levant appeared; the show was compared favourably to Information Please, which was one of his frequent radio haunts.

‘Who Said That?’ Is Intellectual Radio Program
New York, Dec. 8—NBC’s refined and highly intellectual quiz show, “Who Said That?” has been on the air well over a year now, and is currently disbursing information to television viewers each Saturday night.
There are no housewives from Brooklyn on this program. It is confined strictly to people who know what’s going on in the news. Either it’s their business, as in the case of H.V. Kaltenborn, Bob Considine, John Gunther, etc., or they are considered bright enough to remember what they read in the papers.
Occasionally a well-known guest proves to have a bad memory, but he usually other, redeeming, attributes. On one occasion when Colonel Stoopnagle was a guest, Quizmaster Bob Trout fired the following quotation: “If A is a success in life, then A equals X plus Y plus Z; X being work, Y being play, and Z being ‘keep your mouth shut’.”
The panel hadn’t the faintest idea who said it. Finally, Stoopnagle shrugged and remarked: “Only Einstein could have said that.”
“That’s right,” said Trout.
Kaltenborn, who is a frequent guest, muffs one occasionally. He once delivered a long, well informed discourse on the background of a certain quotation, all of it presented in his inimatable [sic] manner.
When he had finished, there was a brief, respectful silence and then Trout said:
“Mr. Kaltenborn, that was such a magnificent commentary that I hate to tell you it is entirely wrong.”
Probably the best ad-lib that has been made on the show so far came from Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, who was asked by one of the panelists what she would do if she woke up in the White House. She said she’d apologize to Mrs. Truman and go home.
Not far behind her is Oscar Levant, the pianist. Both he and Kaltenborn were on a program recently and a question came up as to the ages of Vice President Barkley and Mrs. Barkley. Kaltenbom gave the Veep’s age correctly, but underestimated Mrs. Barkley’s by two years. Kidded by Trout, he said: “I always underestimate a woman’s age by two years.”
At which point Levant remarked: “That’s silly. She’s already done it for you.”

The TV version of Who Said That? seems to have premiered on Thursday, Dec. 9, 1948 at 10 p.m. on WNBT (the last programme before sign-off), and was eventually seen on kinescope in other parts of the U.S. on different evenings

We mentioned What’s My Line? earlier and it’s interesting to note Bennett Cerf and Dorothy Kilgallen both appeared in Who Said That?. (We have not found an appearance by Hal Block).

Anyway, let’s get back to Bob Trout. He talked about his news career with those chat-meisters, Tex and Jinx (who were probably NBC-TV’s biggest stars before Milton Berle) in this syndicated article. This comes from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of Aug. 19, 1951.

Close-Up of Bob Trout
Veteran Radio Special Events Reporter
By Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg
NEW YORK, Aug. 18
BOB TROUT, N.B.C.'s veteran special events reporter, who is observing his twentieth year in radio this month, says he will never forget a broadcast from a small room eight days after F.D.R. was inaugurated.
"He wanted to make a speech to the public which would set forth his program in one-syllable words that everyone understood." says Bob. "Times were bad, the banks were closing and it wasn't a good time for fancy language. He asked Marvin Maclntyre [of the White House staff] and me to plan a suitable introduction for his speech. At a conference, the two of us collaborated on two introductions—one was formal and grave, the other was simple, homely and direct. We sent them both to Roosevelt and it didn't take him long to reach a decision. His secretary telephoned and said: ‘The President likes the idea of calling his speech a fireside chat.’
"He liked it so much that he decided to give a series of fireside chats—for most of which I was the announcer. I was always proud of my part in originating the word— except on hot July nights. Then, the President would look at me reproachfully, and I knew what he was thinking! FIRESIDE chat, indeed . . ."
FIRST TIME I ever saw President Roosevelt was in 1932 when I was working as a fledgling announcer on station WJSV in Alexandria. Va. We got word that Roosevelt, who was then a candidate, was going to make a campaign speech in Baltimore and then take the stump in Union Square—the heart of Hoover's territory. This was considered very audacious of him and both of the big networks were covering his approach from every angle. Our little station decided to beat the opposition by putting Roosevelt on the air before he got to either city.
"I was sent to the railroad station where special equipment had been set up. A spot had been marked on the tracks where Roosevelt's car was scheduled to stop. As I waited with a portable mike in my hand, the locomotive chugged in—bells ringing and steam spouting—and I proudly announced—
“'Here he comes, ladies and gentlemen, the presidential candidate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.’ Five seconds later, there was a loud WHOOSH!—as the train pulled out of the station. It seems as though someone had neglected to inform the engineer of the place to stop in Alexandria. All we got was a glimpse of Roosevelt waving on the observation platform.
“In a spot like that, you must never disappoint the radio audience. I grabbed the mike tightly and said 'That loud noise you just heard, ladies and gentlemen, was from the train of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and it came to you through the courtesy of station WJSV . . .”
AD-LIBBING comes natural to Bob Trout, now master of the lightning-like ad-libs on the TV quiz “Who Said That?” but the great test of his ad-libbing ability still gives him an occasional nightmare—
“In 1934, President Roosevelt was returning from a vacation in Hawaii and I was sent to Portland, Oregon, to broadcast the homecoming ceremonies at the docks. After traveling 3000 miles by train, I was pretty tired and uncomfortable. I remember standing on a pier with 100,000 excited people behind me and the Presidential cruiser in front of me—waiting for F.D.R., who was scheduled to disembark precisely at noon.
“AFTER I HAD DESCRIBED the milling crowd and the blue, sunny skies, I looked at my watch and discovered that it was 12:05—the President was late. I talked on—described the boats in the bay, the uniformed guard, the color, the excitement—but still no President. At 12:15, I was talking about the scenery of the great Northwest, the disappearance of the American Indian, the history of Hawaii—anything I could think of. At 12:30, Mrs. Roosevelt got tired of waiting and went on board to greet her husband. This only held things up some more. By 12:55, I was describing the President's stamp collection to my listeners, stamp by stamp. I think I was talking about the beauties he had from South Africa, when, at 12:58, he finally made his appearance. ‘At last,’ I said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, the next voice you hear will be that of the President.’ F.D.R. grasped the mike, smiled and said 'I'm glad to be back.’ That was all he said—just those six words.
“Much later, I told the President of my chagrin. I said that I couldn't help thinking that a few more words would have been in order. The President disagreed: ‘I heard your speech on the ship's radio and it was better and certainly longer than the ones I usually make.’
“He had actually sat there and listened to me sweat for 58 minutes. Now I've never been able to figure out how to take his comment.
“That was either the best compliment, or the worst kidding, I ever received during 20 years as a radio announcer.”

Trout would have no problem ad-libbing about stamps. He was a collector himself and in the ‘50s hosted a 15-minute syndicated TV show called The World Through Stamps.

He had a final hurrah on television—co-anchoring CBS’ infamous coverage of the 1964 Democratic Convention. The network had foolishly pulled Walter Cronkite off the assignment and that proved to be extremely unpopular, both with viewers and critics in the media.

ABC came calling in 1975. Trout was occasionally heard from Madrid. In 1992, he was brought in to provide background for the network’s political convention coverage on radio. He was 82 years old. To my ears, he was shockingly and sadly incoherent and irrelevant. He wasn’t back the next day. Or the next. He left ABC several years later, but continued to work. He could be heard on occasion on National Public Radio, looking back at the many people and events he covered. (Maybe the NPR site would like to consider re-posting its ‘Robert Trout Remembered’ page with audio in a format that people actually use today).

When Trout died at the age of 91 on Nov. 14, 2000, obituaries concentrated on his war and special events coverage. They referred to his Peabody Award, his modesty and his integrity. You’d have been hard-pressed to find a mention of a quiz show which gave Trout one of his “firsts” in broadcasting.

You're Not a Blue Fin Tuna

There was still life left in Tex Avery’s scenario of a character running outside to avoid making noise inside and waking an angry character. He proved that in The Legend of Rockabye Point (1955) for Walter Lantz. And he showed he could be as subtle as Chuck Jones with expressions.

In this scene, the polar bear realises that instead of a stack of blue fin tuna, he has the watchdog that’s been chomping on him to protect the fish. And then he realises he still has a stick of dynamite in his mouth that he ran outside with. Avery expresses this only with the polar bear’s eyes.



Then.... blam! The noise wakes the dog.



Chomp!



Cut to a wider version of the scene. Tex now employs the running gag—the polar bear sings “Rockabye Baby” to put the dog to sleep. This time, the polar bear rocks the dog with his butt.



Success! The polar bear removes his butt and, in a fine bit of timing, the dog stays in mid-air for eight frames, then drops to the ground in five frames.



Mike Maltese gagged this cartoon for Avery, but the situation is pure Avery. Chilly Willy was never funnier than in the two shorts he starred in for Avery.

Don Patterson, La Verne Harding and Ray Abrams animated this cartoon, my favourite of the four Avery made for Lantz in the 1950s.

Today's Inside Gag

In the fine, old Elmer Plummer-Paul Julian tradition at Warner Bros., background artist Bill Butler tosses in an inside reference in Bonanza Bunny, a September 1959 effort by the Bob McKimson unit.

The sack of Butler Spuds is named after the background artist. Gribbroek Corn Meal is derived by Bob Gribbroek, the layout man on this short. The “arren Hog aw” is probably a reference to Warren Foster, who had left Warners in mid-November 1957 to work for John Sutherland Productions. By the time this cartoon was released, he had begun writing on The Huckleberry Hound Show at Hanna-Barbera. Butler’s name is on screen in about 30 cartoons from 1957 to the closure of the studio, though he seems to have been there off and on the last several years. Most are for the McKimson unit. He replaced Bob Majors by August 1956.

Butler, by the way, had some of his work on display at a showing in Van Nuys in 1963 restricted to artists and muralists in the film industry. Among the other artists you may know are Corny Cole, Vic Haboush, Eyvind Earle, Tom O'Loughlin, Tony Rizzo, Bob McIntosh, Al Dempster and Basil Davidovich.

Tedd Pierce wrote this cartoon, which co-stars McKimson’s version of Yosemite Sam, Blacque Jacques Shellacque. Pierce slacks off a lot as the gags are reminiscent of those found in other Warners cartoons, including a variation of the card game Bugs played with Colonel Shuffle in Mississippi Hare, made by Chuck Jones and Mike Maltese ten years earlier. The whole Bugs/Yukon gold scenario is lifted from Friz Freleng and Warren Foster’s 14 Carrot Rabbit (1952). The “pull your cork” and “fake phone booth call/explosion” are familiar, too. And the “population sign” gag crops up at a number of studios.

Bob Bruce narrates the opening.